Actually, they had made their traditions superior to the word of God.
Mark 7:5-13
5And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
6And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
7in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8¶You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9¶And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
11But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—
12then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,
13thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
True. The practice arose by placing a hedge around a certain commandment. And then adding a hedge around the hedge. And so on. The hedge serving to limit the possibility of breaking a commandnent. Of course the hedge upon hedge became a thicket. And the thicket became a forest. And in time God was obscured